Last week, as widely reported (e.g. here), Trump advocated “terminating all rules and laws, even those in the Constitution just to make him president after losing in 2020.”
It lit a media fire, but I’m convinced this isn’t anything new, and pundits are reading more into it than is there. Trump isn’t a revolutionary. All he wants is his office back, and his ego assuaged.
He can’t stand being a loser. He built his business and political careers by turning “Trump” into a brand name that means success. He projected himself as a winner. His election defeat tarnished that image, and wounded his ego. (The greatest damage of the Trump Organization’s tax fraud conviction likely will be to his image as a “master businessman,” see story here.)
Being a pathological liar, probably since childhood, he naturally claimed the election was “stolen.” Demanding to be “reinstated” is simply an extension of that. When legal experts and media figures pointed out that’s legally and constitutionally impossible, demanding to set those aside was merely an extension of that.
Sure, it’s lawless; but that’s what he is. Forget logic; you can’t argue with a bruised ego, which is what commentators are trying to do. Nevertheless, if this grows into a “Dean scream” gaffe that finishes him politically, that’s a good thing. He’s toxic to American politics and needs to be gone.
Less than a week into the post-explosion fallout, there are signs that leading GOP luminaries heretofore reluctant to criticize Trump are scrambling for shelter. Yesterday, I posted a few of their initial, tentative comments here. Today I have some more.
Mitch McConnell: “Anyone seeking the presidency who thinks that the Constitution could somehow be suspended or not followed, it seems to me would have a very hard time being sworn in as president of the United States,” referring to Trump’s 2024 candidacy. (Story here.)
Fox Business host Stuart Varney: “He’s trying to walk it back today. But the damage has been done.” (Story here.)
Charles C. W. Cooke in National Review: “Are you not tired of this crap?” (Story here.)
Wall Street Journal editorial: “Mr. Trump is giving Republicans a taste of what they’re in for if they nominate him again in 2024. … What he’ll really terminate is the GOP.” (Story here.)
It’s not news that GOP establishment poobahs are annoyed at Trump. They never liked him, have always wanted to be rid of him, but were swept along in the mob of his supporters. In 2016, the GOP was the victim of a hostile takeover. Beaten, they kept their disquiet to themselves and even defended him, because he had the party’s voters in his pocket.
The only thing that matters is whether he still does. Trump’s power flows from that mob, not their approval. He didn’t need the GOP establishment; they needed him.
If a turning point has been reached, it was losses in the 2022 elections, not his latest verbal outrage. Post-election polling revealed Trump is “poison” to independent voters (see story here). Fox News lamented that independents and “some Republican” voters are now distancing from Trump (see story here). The conservative-leaning New York Post said “many of his once-devoted followers say they are done with” him (see story here).
Republicans never had any moral compunctions about Trump’s immorality and lawlessness, and they’re not suddenly growing a conscience. They couldn’t care less what he thinks of the Constitution, which they were aware of all along. If they’re abandoning him, it’s because they no longer see him as a ticket to electoral victories, but instead as an anchor on their future electoral prospects.